Tar Heels not accustomed to losing

by Chris Littmann
For The Post

Great schools do not rebuild — they reload, an old sports cliché goes. Someone left an empty gun in Chapel Hill this season.

The North Carolina Tar Heels, (6-17, 3-10 Atlantic Coast Conference) have lost more games than any team in the history of the program.

The losses the Heels suffered in the last two off-seasons were too great to take without the program losing a step.

One major blow came in summer 2000 when heralded forward Jason Parker, who now plays at Kentucky, did not enroll in Chapel Hill because of academic questions.

Then in summer 2001, North Carolina lost five of their top seven scorers from the previous season.

Guard Joseph Forte declared for the NBA draft. Center Brendan Haywood and guard Max Owens graduated. Tar Heel quarterback/point guard Ronald Curry and defensive end/forward Julius Peppers both decided to devote their attention to the football field.

Two changes in head coaches in the last five years also caused problems. Dean Smith retired in favor of Bill Guthridge, who was replaced by Matt Doherty.

“Coaching changes almost always begin some kind of decline at first,” said Bill Cole, sports reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal.

Hampton and Davidson embarrassed North Carolina early in the season. After a road loss to Indiana, the Tar Heels fell to 0-3 for the first time in 73 years.

Cole said the Tar Heels have lost confidence during the season’s progression.

“They go from one game to the next wondering what is going to happen; their confidence has the thickness of an eggshell right now,” Cole said.

Barry Svrluga, sports reporter for Raleigh News and Observer, said the dismal season has hit seniors Jason Capel and Kris Lang the hardest.

“They were the defiant ones saying it was our time to shine,” Svrluga said, “When you talk like that and it does not come true, it’s very tough.”

Despite suffering through this season, the Tar Heels can take solace in the fact that help is on the way. After bringing in McDonald’s All-American forward Jawad Williams for the 2001-02 season, North Carolina received a commitment from the top power forward in the nation, Sean May.

They also brought in Raymond Felton, the top ranked point guard in the nation by The Sporting News. North Carolina also inked Rashad McCants, the No. 4-ranked small forward in the nation by The Sporting News.

The group North Carolina signed for next year is talented, but with Capel and Lang graduating, there are still holes to be filled.

“It’d be foolish to think they could completely bounce back in one year and think they could rely on five or six freshmen,” Syrluga said.